In the upcoming spirit of Halloween, I have decided to make a little casual Flash game that involves a pile of characters stacked together in the center of the screen. The goal of the game is to get all of the characters from the pile into a box that you drop them into.
Think of a Jenga-type game, except that the blocks are actual little faces of Halloween characters. A little indicator box will appear in the top left part of the screen that tells you which character you need to pick out of the pile and put into a box.
Since the pile is made up of several different characters, the one you need to pick may be buried in the middle of the pile, or even on the edge. Do you re-stack some of the characters to try and reach the one you want, or do you risk the whole pile falling over by trying to drag the character out? If the pile falls over, you lose the game. I think there will be a point system or a timer that can keep the tension up. I might try and include achievements for not letting any characters fall to the ground, or something along those lines.
I am using the QuickBox2D library for my physics engine, and a little routine that makes the mouse cursor turn into a hand that can grab and drag the characters. My wife has been helping with the character design and scene concepts, and I think it is coming along real well so far. Any time you can involve your wife in making a game, life sure does start to feel good :)
Below is a very, very early version of a creepy Halloween level that I am making:
The pile is not constructed yet, but I have put a few test objects in there to see how it would look once I get more characters drawn. I will keep posting as I get further along!
If there are any of you out there reading this, let me know what you think so far. I would appreciate any feedback.
